By: Elizabeth Semmelhack
Printed by Moveable Inc, Toronto
From inside front cover: One of the most extreme forms of footwear ever worn in Western dress was the chopine, fashionable in the 15th and 16th centuries. This pedestal-like footwear transformed the upper-class women into towering figures but for what purpose? And why did the chopine fall from fashion in the 17th century to be replaced by the high heel? This book explores the social history of elevating footwear from antiquity to the end of the 17th century and considers why elevating footwear has been so inexorably connected to the construction of femininity and the gendered economics of fashionable display.
From the inside back cover: The Bata Shoe Museum opened the doors of its award winning building, designed by acclaimed Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama, in downtown Toronto, Canada
Today, the museum boasts a world-class collection of more than 13,000 artifacts spanning 4,500 years of history and actively supports a mandate to research, exhibit and publish on the cultural, historical and sociological value of footwear.